Chrome OS for tablets gets video demo, still too early

updated 11:10 am EDT, Mon August 8, 2011

by MacNN Staff

Chrome OS for tablets shown off early

Google's progress towards Chrome OS on tablets may have become more definite with a posting of a video (below) showing the early interface. Along with the necessary on-screen keyboard, the interface would optimize much of the interface specifically for touch. Suggested results would appear as touch-friendly buttons, and elements like menus would be oversized to make them easy to use.

The tablet components are likely still young and don't show full optimization for touchscreen devices. All 2011 plans so far involve Chromebooks.

Google has publicly maintained that Chrome OS is so far being focused on notebooks and desktops. The search firm has hinted at more devices but has always positioned these as long-term prospects rather than anything close. Leaks have emerged, however, of a Tegra 2-based tablet codenamed Seaboard that may be Google's reference tablet hardware and a signal of its intent.

Android already fulfills most of the role of tablets and has raised questions why Google might want Chrome OS to do the same. The company has usually justified Chrome OS as a platform for those who live on the web and for enterprises, where the always-updated nature of web apps and the relatively secure foundation could make it cheaper to run.

Any Chrome OS tablet could face an uphill battle. Android already has a minority share relative to the iPad and isn't likely to be passed by its newer sibling if it ships.

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Thinking you can limit users to a thin client terminal is so 60's minded. For sure you can do a lot more now with web based apps, but it will be forever less productive than locally install natives Apps. Pretend for a future of HTML5 apps are delusional and remembering all Java promises in the 90, all those cross-plateform workaround can't match native code.

So Google can fall back on Chrome OS while they're rewriting Android to be 100% Java compliant. That will likely take more than a year. An eternity in the mobile technology space.

And even when Android uses legal, licensed Java, HTC and other Android handset makers will still be forced to pay Microsoft (and likely Oracle) for each Android handset they ship. They already are. Microsoft already makes more money from Android than Google does. Do the math.

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